


Lobster Bisque

by fajrdrako



Category: Hornblower (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-02
Updated: 2018-02-02
Packaged: 2019-03-12 13:33:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13548390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fajrdrako/pseuds/fajrdrako
Summary: On leave ashore in London, Horatio Hornblower unexpectedly re-encounters an old acquaintance.





	Lobster Bisque

 

London was a huge and sprawling city with many thousands of inhabitants, of which Horatio Hornblower knew almost none.  It was typical of his fortunes, therefore, that on his first day of leave in that city, he should meet up with a man he did know, one he did not wish to meet.

He was walking along The Strand, and thought for a moment he heard someone call his name. He dismissed it; who in this city would know him?  The voice became a stentorian bellow.  “Mr.  Hornblower!”

He turned and found himself facing Lord Edrington, who had a pleased look on his face.  He wore full regimentals, and his black boots shone in the pale winter sunlight.

“Sir,” said Hornblower politely, nodding as he touched his hat.  Then he remembered who he was talking to.  Lord bloody Edrington.  He amended the greeting.  “My lord.”

“Hornblower.”  The smile had faded, but there was a light in the Major’s eyes.  “By God, it’s good to see you.  Will you join me for a drink?”

“I regret, my lord,  I cannot.  I  have errands to attend to.”  In fact, he had nowhere to go, except to find an establishment where he could buy supper.  He was not about to mention this to Edrington.

“I could accompany you.”

“I regret, my lord, I think not.”  Typical of the man, not to take ‘no’ for an answer.  Typical of the man too, to push the matter further.

“Are you angry with me, Horatio?”  An ingratiating slight smile, and Horatio’s temper rose.  Who had given Edrington permission to use his first name?  Divine right of Earls?

In point of fact, he was not angry with Edrington, since he had no reason to be angry with him.  The Major had saved Archie’s life at Muzillac, there was no doubt about it, and his own as well, and the lives of his men.  He was thankful to him for that.  Edrington had kept a sane head and a cool temper in a time of crisis, while Horatio himself had made a shambles of it, and a girl had died, and six men, and two cannon were lost.  The lesson he had learned at Muzillac was one he would never forget.  Because of it, he respected Edrington for his leadership.

Aside from that, he couldn’t stand the man.  My lord Edrington had rather too much in common with the insufferable aristocracy of Louis XVI’s time, whose arrogance had brought on the bloodbath of the French Revolution.  The man was not a rogue or a fool; worse, he was a man whose sense of self-worth made him think himself better than his fellow man, and who used the advantage wilfully.   Pride could be a virtue; Edrington made it a sin.

He’d argued about him with Archie.  Archie wouldn’t hear a bad word about him.  “You wouldn’t speak so if you’d seen him at the bridge, Horatio.  He was magnificent.  Cool as a cucumber.  Into the breach!”

“There was no breach,” said Horatio, who sometimes took Archie’s quotes too seriously. “Anyway, you were the one talking about bought commissions.”

“I didn’t mean him, precisely,” backtracked Archie.  Horatio hated it when he did that.  Of course he had meant Edrington, who else had they been talking about at the time?   “I just meant that people buy their commissions in the army, and they do, but Lord Edrington has more than proved his worth.  Did you hear about the time they besieged - ”

“I’ve heard all your stories about Edrington a dozen times.”  He knew he was exaggerating, but twice was enough.

Archie shook his head, grinning as if he were enjoying Horatio’s discomfiture.  “You’re just miffed because he laughed at you when you couldn’t get on the horse.”

“I did get on the horse.”

“After six circles and a leg-up!”

This reminder did not further endear his lordship to Horatio.  “Lord Edrington is a snob,” said Horatio flatly and Archie laughed, unconvinced and unrepentant.

So Horatio now said crisply to Edrington, “I am not angry with you, my lord. How could I be, when you have not wronged me?  Rather the contrary, I think.  You helped a dear friend of mine at Muzillac, for which I have not thanked you adequately.  Please accept my thanks now.”

“You can thank me over a glass of wine,” suggested Edrington.  Horatio’s irritation level grew.  “If not now, perhaps later.”

“Perhaps, my lord.”

“Tomorrow?”

“I regret - ”

“You don’t want to see me, do you?”

“My lord, I - ”

“Do you?”

There was no defense like the truth.  “No, my lord.”

“Why not?”

“Because you have forced on me an unwelcome conversation on a public street - my lord.  Because you seem to think that because of your rank and privilege I must be at your beck and call, although I have neither the patience nor the desire to hear your war stories.  Because I must be on my way, my lord, and if I have offended you, I regret that it is only because you have forced me to be blunt.  Sir.”

Edrington’s eyes were alight.  “My God,” he said, in wonder.  “You’re magnificent when you’re angry!”

Horatio, still breathless from his unwise diatribe, found no words with which to answer.

“I’ll make it up to you,” said Lord Edrington.  He spoke quickly and earnestly.  “Visit me.  Please.  You must, Horatio.  Listen, here is my direction - take it.”  When Horatio did not move, he took Horatio’s hand in his, and pressed a piece of paper into his palm. He was not wearing his customary gloves.  His touch lingered as he dropped his hand, so that his fingertips ran slowly, lightly, along the backs of Horatio’s fingers.  “Keep it.  Come to see me tomorrow - come for supper - seven o’clock.”

His Lordship, the arrogant Earl, had said “please” to him, begging him to visit.  Horatio could think of no answer.  He opened his mouth, and closed it.

Lord Edrington stepped closer, dropping his voice, keeping his stare locked on Horatio’s eyes.  “Visit me and I will show you sensual delights such as you have never known.”  His voice dropped further. “Please.”

Then he turned and walked away, leaving Horatio to pursue the non-existent errands he claimed were so important.

Rooted to the spot, Horatio looked at the paper Edrington had given him. Written on it in elegant script were neither the Earl’s given names nor his surname nor his full title, simply the designation __Edrington,__  and below that an address in Grosvenor Square.

He put it in his pocket.  His appetite for supper had suddenly disappeared.  Edrington’s words echoed in his memory: “I will show you sensual delights such as you have never known”.

He should have guessed the man was a debauchee.  But....

“I will show you.”  The words might have fanned his anger and contempt, but they did not.  The words sent a chill down his spine.  The anger had disappeared, and it was difficult now to remember why he had found Lord Edrington annoying.  Edrington did not act above his station; he was indeed an Earl, and his behaviour was perfectly in keeping with that fact.  He did not abuse his position.  Horatio had met few noblemen and those only in the line of duty, but Edrington compared badly to none of them.

He fingered the note in his pocket.  He had been invited to an Earl’s home for dinner and more.  Impossible to believe.  He had never moved in such circles, not without Captain Pellew’s patronage and presence.

Nor would he be doing so now, he reminded himself, since he had no intention of visiting Lord Edrington tomorrow or at any other time, for supper or any other purpose.  He would not have received the invitation in the first place if Edrington had not felt a passing attraction to him - and why that should be, he could not imagine.  Nevertheless, it had happened, and it was sheer unpardonable vanity that gave him a sense of pleasure in it.

He walked slowly along The Strand, and took a turn into another street without thinking.  “I will show you....” He wondered what, exactly, Edrington was proposing to show him.  He remembered the touch of Edrington’s fingers on his and the promises they contained.  The proposition was personal, intimate: sensual delights.

All the more reason to ignore it.  No, to refuse it.  To ignore the invitation would be boorish, for although the proposal was indecent, it was delivered with a sincerity that Horatio could only respect.

At length he found a public house with a table available, and ordered beer and steak pie.  He was having difficulty in forgetting the way Edrington had looked at him.  He could not find it offensive.  Quite the opposite.  There had been little admiration in his life - oh, no doubt his father had been proud of him, and his mother, while she lived, had been loving; but in his adult life he had few close relationships, and none of those had been based on love of his body or connection of the spirit.  Archie, for example, was his dear friend, but it was absurd to imagine that Archie might admire his looks - absurd, indeed, to think his looks might be anything to admire.

In lieu of the love affairs that in his heart he longed for, he had cultivated a careful propriety.  He did not go to brothels; nor would he touch the pretty, laughing women who came to the ships to service the men.  There was a crudity to them that shocked him, though his own fastidiousness in the matter perplexed him.  He was not judgemental.  He did not believe, like the Puritans, that pleasures of the flesh were to be avoided at all cost.

Similarly, he had never responded to the occasional advances he had received from other men - bold glances, easily ignored; bold suggestions, easily refused.  It was not that he found those of  his own sex unattractive, far from it.  There were many reasons for him to avoid the delights of the flesh, including a fear of revealing his vulnerability and his need.

His supper half-finished, he pushed it aside, and asked the proprietor for ink and a pen.  He  wrote neatly on the back of Edrington’s note:

 

My Lord,

Regretfully I must decline.  

    - H. Hornblower, Lt., R.N.

 

The publican confirmed that his kitchen lad was a spry youngster who for a pittance would deliver the message to Grosvenor  Square in no time at all.   The boy sped off and Horatio sat drinking his beer.  The incident was over.  He would in all likelihood never see Lord Edrington again, and it was just as well.  Edrington aroused thoughts he preferred to avoid.

He walked back to the Thames, and hired a boat to take him to the Indefatigable.  Once there, he made certain everything was in hand - even though he was not on duty, he liked to make doubly sure that no orders were shirked  while Captain Pellew was absent.

Once he confirmed to his own satisfaction that everything was as it should be, he joined a game of whist in the Officer’s Mess, but found it difficult to concentrate on the patterns of the cards, and excused himself before he could lose more than pocket change.

He stood on deck, watching dusk fall on the city.  There was a fascination to London, a place of busy activity and crowded streets, so many people, so much to do and see that he wondered how it was they didn’t all go mad.  Perhaps they did go mad, and then propositioned mere acquaintances when they met them by chance on the street.

Edrington was  somewhere in that city.  Grosvenor  Square, in all likelihood.  An odd man.  An intelligent, competent man, who indeed stood on authority and had mocked Horatio’s horsemanship, but who had also behaved decently and courageously and had saved lives -  including his own and Archie’s.  Who had handled the despicable Marquis de Moncoutant with smooth diplomacy and had done what was necessary, while Horatio was making a shambles of the entire mission.  Who had, whatever his personal habits, enough discretion to avoid gossip and enough charm to generate it.  Yet Horatio had never heard anything to tarnish his lordship’s good name.

He spent some time reading Montaigne’s “Essais”, and then went to bed.  He found himself restless, which was unusual: his strong and healthy body, constantly exercised by the sea and the ship, served him well.   Tonight he could not rest.

A man on leave ought to be enjoying himself.  A man in London should find a thousand things to do.  A man who was bored with London, Samuel Johnson had said, was bored with life.

Horatio was not bored with London, precisely, but he knew no one and could not afford the shops, gaming houses, coffee-houses or racetracks, and did not feel much incentive to go to them alone.  Who did he have for companionship?  Captain Pellew was in Portsmouth on extended business which did not require his attendance.  Archie Kennedy was on leave, visiting his family in Pembrokeshire.    The other officers were shipmates, but not precisely friends with whom he wanted to spend his leisure hours.  He had no family.  Enough years had passed since his school days in England that he did not remember the directions of his old boyhood friends, assuming they might want a visit from him - if they even remembered him now.   They had gone their ways, he had gone his.  He had been in any case a solitary boy, close to none of them.

Only one man had invited him to his home, and that an Earl far above him in rank, whom he had once thought he disliked.

He did not understand why he seemed now to have changed his mind.  Because the man had flattered him with his intentions?

Nonsense.  The flattery, the outright flirtation,  meant little.  He knew that.  He was, if anything, nothing more than a whim to the Earl, a passing fancy which had no doubt already found a better object in someone else.  He must put the incident out of his mind.  It meant nothing.

If he had been repelled in the past by the crudity of the loose women and the lustful men who had occasionally made themselves available to him, it occured to him that Edrington was their opposite: as refined as a piece of painted porcelain.  At first glance he had thought his lordship effete.  Knowing him better, he knew that there was no softness under the elegance.  The man had a core of iron.

He no doubt had considerable expertise in matters of the boudoir.  If he had laughed at Horatio’s inability to handle a horse, he would mock even more his inexpertise in matters of the flesh, where Horatio was equally unschooled.

Horatio was, of course, quite willing to learn to ride a horse.  Bed-play was another matter entirely.

Half asleep, he found the thought triggering a memory.  Lord Edrington had been saying good-bye to the officers of the _ _Indefatigable__ , with whom he had found some rapport.  Horatio was standing apart,  brooding, not wishing to be approached.  Archie had dragged Edrington over for a leave-taking.  “Lord Edrington is disembarking, Horatio.”

“Good day, my lord.”  Horatio had hardly glanced at him.  He was shaken by the disastrous outcome at Muzillac, by the death of a girl he had wished to save, by the pointlessness of their failure - of his own failure.  He had no time or energy for social pleasantries with haughty army majors.

Edrington had not tried to shake his hand.  He had simply said, “When you are in England again, come to visit me at my estate.  I will teach you to ride.”

At the time, Horatio had taken it for mockery.  He said sharply, “Thank you, my lord, but I think it unlikely that I will have the leisure.”

“Very well,” had said Edrington.  “I leave the invitation open.  God speed, Mr. Hornblower.”

Horatio had promptly forgotten the conversation.  Now, remembering, he wished he had noted the expression on the Earl’s face, which might have revealed more than his words.  What he had interpreted as ridicule might have been a sincere offer of friendship, and his stables might provide a good setting for a man to learn to ride and ride well.

Or, examined again, might the invitation have had yet another meaning?  Was the noble Earl offering to teach him to ride in a somewhat more carnal sense?

Yesterday, such a thought would never have occurred to him, and if it had, he would have thought it an impossibility.  His perspective had changed today.  “Visit me and I will show you sensual delights such as you have never known.”

He tried and failed to stop imaging what those delights might be.  He shivered, and willed himself to sleep.

Eventually he did, lulled by the waves and the familiar roll of the ship.  He awoke in the middle of the night, shaken by a dream he could not remember.  It had been a dream of reaching for something - something snatched away from him - and kisses, too, but he could not remember who he was kissing, or who was kissing him, no girl he knew, oh God, perhaps again no girl at all.   Better to forget such longings,  he told himself sternly.  A dream is nothing but a dream.

Simpson had accused him once, with uncanny insight, of having a taste for other boys.  The memory of Simpson’s voice had done a lot to keep him chaste, over the years.  He wondered if in some way this allowed Simpson to win, posthumously, one more small victory over his spirit.

He slept again, woke twice, and was up before dawn.

As he ate his breakfast, the Purser brought an envelope to him.  “You’re a lucky bastard today, Mr. Hornblower.  You’re the only one with mail. Personal mail.”  

“Oh?”  Curious, Horatio took it.  Who would be writing to him?  Archie?  The address was simply, “Lt. Hornblower, H.M.S. Indefatigable”.  He opened it.

Inside was another of Edrington’s notes, this time in his own precise, flowing handwriting.  On it he had written, “Change your mind.  The invitation stands.  Oh, Horatio! - E.”

He let it sit by his plate while he finished his breakfast.   Then he went to the deck, and tore the message into little pieces, letting the wind carry the scraps to the water where they floated, sunlight catching the flecks of white, and then disappeared.

He was no rich man’s plaything.

The resolve stayed with him till late afternoon, when he found himself wondering idly what would happen if he accepted the invitation.  Not that he would do so.  But if he did. . . .

He caught himself up short. These were not the thoughts of idle curiosity, but the musings of lust.

He gave himself and his body short shrift for these cravings.  Good hard work would dissipate his energy and make him stop thinking of it.  And so it did, though Matthews remarked that he was working harder on leave than anyone ever did on duty, and why was he hanging about still, anyway?  Hornblower damned his impudence, but when the doctor and some of the officers decided to go into London, he went with them.

Once there, he felt himself again at loose ends.  He had no desire to stay with the others, and suspected they had no particular wish for his company.   Parsons was going to visit a bawdy house, and the doctor was visiting his sister-in-law’s brother and his family.

Horatio did not know where he was going, but he knew where he was not going.  He was not going to a certain townhouse in Grosvenor Square.

Instead, he did what Archie might have done,  something he had never done before: he went to a play in Drury Lane.  The play was “Hamlet, Prince of Denmark”, and it was so moving that he wept when the sweet prince died in the arms of a man named Horatio.   No wonder Archie so loved theatre.

He remembered Captain Pellew once saying, as a piece of advice for the midshipmen, that a man should always embrace new experiences, since that is how a man learns.  In choosing to go to the theatre instead of visiting Edrington, Horatio had foregone one new experience for another, one that was much safer.  It troubled neither his conscience nor his self-esteem.

Was it more pleasurable?  Was the safer path truly the wiser one?

He went back to the Indefatigable feeling low and entangled in his thoughts.  He was simply tired from sleeping badly last night.  He read a section of Montaigne - the language was still difficult, but not the impossibility it had once seemed.  Faced head on, the impossible often became possible.

But not the impossibility of falling into Lord Edrington’s willing arms.

He had already made up his mind.  He must stop thinking of Edrington’s invitation.  His body must stop urging him to it.  If his senses betrayed him, he must ignore them until they bent to his will.

The trouble was, he sometimes had difficulty in distinguishing what his will actually was.

He wondered if Lord Edrington had waited up for him, wishing he would come to the house.  He pictured him looking out the window, glancing at his clock.   He wondered at what point Edrington had realized he would not come at all, and had given up the expectation.  He wondered what Edrington had felt.  Disappointment?  Anger?  Hurt?

More likely, his lordship had forgotten he had ever issued the invitation in the first place, and was amusing himself with a whore.

No.  That was stupid.  Horatio would never sort out his feelings if he told himself lies, and he had already in the past done Edrington the disservice of misjudging him.  He believed that  Edrington’s invitation, at the time of his giving it, had been sincere and heartfelt.  He knew that Edrington had remembered it the following morning, and had cared enough to send a lad with that note refusing Horatio’s refusal.  Whatever complexities made up Edrington’s character, they did not include callousness or casual treatment of his friends.  Edrington was an honourable man.

Did honourable men proposition other honourable men?

That was, perhaps, the crux of the matter.  Horatio thought about it and could not be sure of the answer.  Desire in itself was not dishonourable.   As always, sexuality was a conundrum, a baffling matter that lay at the core of so many facets of life.  The more he knew of it, and the more he saw how other men handled that part of themselves, the more perplexed he became.

He slept.  He did not wake throughout the night as he had the night before, but rose in the morning feeling sore and tired from heavy dreams he could not remember.  His body ached and moved awkwardly.  He felt restless.

A summons came from the Admiralty for Captain Pellew.  At Bracegirdle’s request, he went into the City in Pellew’s stead, and handled the matter as best he could, bringing back papers for Pellew’s perusal and signature when he returned to the ship.  The matter was not urgent enough to require a horseman to be sent to Portsmouth to seek out the Captain.  Horatio almost wished he could make the trip himself, escaping his own dilemma and the unceasing temptation of Grosvenor Square.  What kind of man was he?  The kind who would accept Edrington’s offer, or the kind who would not?  Why could his mind not overrule his hungry body?  

That evening, encouraged by his enjoyment of drama the night before, he went again to Drury Lane.  This time he went to see “A School for Scandal”, which was billed as a comedy - indeed, he recalled that Archie had spoken of it once.  The crowd was boisterous. The action on the stage made him laugh until his ribs ached.    The lead actress was no Kitty Cobham, but she had pretty ankles and a saucy smile, which did nothing to diminish the ache in his cock and the unresolved desires he felt.  Or was it her stylish young suitor who made him feel again this nudge of arousal?  Whichever it was, he was reminded, acutely, of the man he had come here to forget: Lord Edrington.

He walked back to the riverside. Because he had spent too much money on admission to the theatre two evenings in a row,  he lacked funds for a meal, but it did not seem to matter.  He had lost his appetite.

He wondered what he would do tomorrow.  He did not have the resources to spend on another entertainment, but without that, he was wandering aimlessly.  He had two more days of leave, and there was nothing he wanted to do, and no one he wanted to do it with.

No, he thought, sitting in a dory on the choppy Thames on the way back to the ship.   That was untrue.  He wanted.... in his heart, he wanted to go to Edrington.  He wanted to be shown those sensual delights that were such a mystery to him and which Edrington said he was eager to share.  He wanted to lose himself in Lord Edrington’s embrace.

He wanted the impossible.

Why did he believe that he must not go to Edrington’s bed?  Was he afraid of his own desires?  Was it because he had never done such a thing before?  He had no desire to become a libertine, but still he had no wish to be celibate forever.  Was it truly honour which kept him chaste?  Could it be a motive less pure - pride, perhaps, or fear?  

He did not want to be a prude.  He did not intend to be a coward.

Lying alone in his bed, he let himself consider Edrington.  Why did the man attract him so?  He thought he had paid little attention to Edrington when they were on shipboard together, or landing at Quiberon.  He found now that he remembered him vividly and in detail: the straight back as he rode with the confidence of a man who has been riding since childhood; the curl of his lip when he was amused; the alert thoughtfulness in his eyes as he studied, with intelligence, the events around him.  There was a strength and stillness to Edrington that came, perhaps, from the experience of command - but few commanders possessed it.  It was more likely an intrinsic part of the man himself, something straight from his nature.

He remembered far too well what His Lordship looked like: the shape of the long graceful fingers which had, in London, so gently touched the back of his hand.  The strong legs, the voice that carried decision or derision in the same measured value.  The neat, fair, curling hair.  The eyes that saw so much and revealed so little, brown eyes that brought to mind  the glow of soft, polished wood in candlelight.

He remembered how Archie had talked about the Earl, and how much it had annoyed him.  Was it jealousy, that Archie had found an officer and friend to admire beside himself?  Archie was his closest and dearest companion: was he repaying his friendship by, possessively, resenting his admiration of any other man?  Had he reacted by being unreasonably hostile to Edrington, who had done nothing to deserve it except to offer true support to Archie when he needed it?

He turned over abruptly in his bed.  Surely he had not been so petty.

Or, worse, had he been jealous because he wanted Edrington’s attention, and he thought Archie had it instead?

Oh, God, he was a fool.

And here he was, lonely and aroused, and could and would do nothing about it.  He would not go to Lord Edrington to say . . . to say . . . what could he say?

He could think of nothing to say to his high and mighty lordship.  He did not want to talk to him.  He mistrusted words, especially when words were masks for feelings.  He wanted to take Edrington in his arms and find - whatever was to be found there.  Comfort?  Knowledge?  Desire?

He turned onto his other side.  He would drive himself mad, and to no purpose.  Edrington was not for him, whatever he might wish.  An Earl.  What had he to do with an Earl?  Let himself go to the man, Edrington would use him like a whore and tire of him as soon as the novelty wore off.

It might be worth it.

Madness; he had been no man’s plaything yet and would not become so now, not even for a beautiful, unprincipled soldier with beguiling eyes.

Yet . . . Edrington’s seductive invitation implied more that he wished to play the whore for Horatio’s pleasure than the other way around.

Was he misjudging Edrington again?  Was he assuming that because he was rich, he was without morals?  That because he was bold enough - brave enough - to issue his audacious invitation, that he was unprincipled and heartless?

That would be unjust. And yet, that unfairness was his only defence, for his body was already defying him and his mind following suit.  All his life he had avoided the temptation of his wayward senses and the pitfalls he saw there.

All his life. If he continued so he would be a bitter, lonely man, his existence full of nothing but regrets.  He would prefer to be a warm and loving man with his arms full of Lord Edrington.

He could not.  He dare not.

Why not?

Would he waste his life in searching for a love so tame and safe that, when he found it, it would be meaningless?  What was the nature of manhood, if a man could not accept the desires of his body, on his own terms?

He slept.  He awoke, sweating and aroused.  He thought, sleepily, of Edrington’s eyes on him, and the message he read in them.

It took a long time to go to sleep again.  When he did,  his mind made its decision in spite of him.

He knew by mid-morning that he was going to Grosvenor Square that night.  He found himself planning what he would wear - his best, cleanest linen;  his fresh-brushed uniform, which was nothing like the clothes a nobleman would wear, but which neatly bypassed questions of social status and civilian rank.  He washed carefully and even used scent, a trace of something spicy and laced with cinnamon that had come from India.  He cleaned his fingernails with particular care.  He did not want Lord Edrington to think him an unkempt barbarian.

He thought as he was leaving in the skiff that Matthews gave him an odd look and sniffed the air, but that was no doubt his own nervous fear.  It was nothing to Matthews where he might be going.  It was only his overwrought nerves that made it seem that everyone on the ship could tell at a glance that he was going to meet an illicit male lover in the city - and that the prospect excited him.

It was not too late to turn back.

Nevertheless, he did not turn back.

He paid the lad who had taken him ashore, and added a tip for luck, despite his sorry finances. He had again partaken of no supper, because he was too tense, at odds with himself.  He walked from the dock to Grosvenor Square, taking care not to become lost in the warren of streets and lanes that comprised the labyrinth of London.  The wind was cold tonight, the air dry and clear.

Taking care was not enough.  He became lost twice, and discovered the second time, when he had his bearings again, that he had wandered too far east and had to make his way back westward again.  Despite the chill in the air, the streets were full of people, some begging, some hoping to steal, some simply loitering, some on legitimate business.  There were girls selling flowers and men selling sweetmeats.  In the islands of lamplight, it seemed all a bizarre dream.

Still, here he was, in Grosvenor Square, at the address which he had thrown to the wind and the waves but which was engraved on his memory.

Suppose Edrington, angered by his refusal, didn’t want to see him?  Was it possible that Edrington had reconsidered his invitation, or found another lover this night?  Horatio took a deep breath to settle himself, standing straight and alone.  He was doing this thing.  He wanted to do this thing.  He needed to, or he would never be able to live with himself again.

Someone moved in the shadows, and he realized it was either a felon or a watchman.  Here he was, standing in the street in a suspicious manner, hesitant in his hat and greatcoat, staring up at a townhouse that belonged to the wealthiest man he knew.  He must stand there no longer.

Resolute, he went to the door, and knocked.

It was answered by a footman in livery.  Behind him, Horatio caught a glimpse of a hallway that might have belonged to a palace, a huge staircase, and a work of art on the landing - Gainsborough, perhaps? - that was probably worth a man’s life savings.  Horatio cleared his throat and said, “I have come to see Lord Edrington.”

“Lord Edrington is not at home.”

The servant did not budge from the threshold, or ask him to come in and wait for His Lordship, or inquire his name, as Horatio thought any good servant ought to do. Instead he looked at Horatio with the disdain a cook might show to a cockroach, and the look reminded Horatio uncomfortably of the day he had first met Edrington, and Edrington’s cool words:  “I am in fact the Earl of Edrington.”  Why had he not seen how utterly desirable the Earl was in that very moment?  How blind could he have been?  

Was it he being foolishly blind, now, to the great social gulf between them?  But no: he was an officer of His Majesty’s Royal Navy and a gentleman, inferior to none.

The footman was about to close the door.  Horatio wedged his foot in the crack and said quickly, “Give him my name.  Tell him I called.”

The man did not reopen the door or speak, but he waited for Horatio to speak.

“Tell him that Horatio Hornblower came to see him.  Horatio Hornblower!”

“I will do that.”

“Thank you,” said Horatio, but he said it to a closed door.

He walked back into the street, leaden with disappointment.  Anticipation had kept him mildly aroused for hours; now his cock felt heavy and uncomfortable, an enemy at his core.  He had let himself hope for - what, sensual delights?  It had all been a folly.  He was not the type to meddle with Earls.  He was not, in truth, the type to find passionate adventure in other people’s beds.  What madness had allowed him to hope it might happen?

He took a street at random, not caring particularly where it would lead him.  He could not afford entertainment, or even supper.  He might as well work off his frustration in walking.  He could explore London by night.  They said it was dangerous, but he might welcome being accosted by a footpad.  It would give him an excuse to hit someone.

He thought he heard his name called, but that too must be wishful thinking, for he knew no one in London.  He strode on, pushing past a group of men and women embarking in carriages from their warmly-lit doorway.  They were laughing and talking, and he looked at them, envying the happiness and companionship which they had that he did not.  For him, the night was cold and lonely.  He had wanted so much more.

He had wanted Edrington, whose lightest touch had put a spell on his body that would not go away.  He had wanted Edrington, his attention, the experience of his sensuality - and to touch him in return.  He wanted these things still.  Anger and disappointment filled him.  He was a fool, to long for man so out of his reach.

An arm grasped his shoulder.  He whirled, ready to strike, and found himself face to face with Lord Edrington in his shirtsleeves.

Edrington grasped his shoulders, holding him at arms’ length.  “My God, you walk fast,” he said. “Those long legs of yours!  Come back.  I’m at home.  I mean, I was, before I came running after you.”

In rucked-back sleeves, he looked boyish.  But the cut of the shirt and the waistcoat still proclaimed him a man of great wealth and supreme desirability, and Horatio could not believe yet that his hopes might come true.  He stammered, “M - my lord Edrington.”

“Phillips lied,” said Edrington, not letting go of him. “I was at home.  He didn’t even tell me you had come.  I saw you on the street, thank God, as you were leaving.  Goddamn Phillips, I’ll have him flogged for that.”

Horatio paled. “My lord!”

“I’ll have him hanged - drawn and quartered - keelhauled - ”

“Good Lord!”

 

“Horatio, I am joking!” shouted Edrington, in tones loud enough to alert the regiment.

“Yes,” said Horatio awkwardly.  “I’m laughing.”

Then suddenly he was, and somehow they had their arms around each other’s shoulders.  It was only for a moment, but it restored Horatio’s equilibrium.  “You’re going to have to stop taking me seriously all the time,” said Edrington.  “I couldn’t believe it was you.  I couldn’t believe you came to me after all.  That is what happened, isn’t it?  You wanted to come?  Tell me this isn’t an errand for Pellew, or a dispatch from the Admiralty.”

“I’m a little late,” said Horatio, apologetically, avoiding some horse-mess in the street.  Suddenly his heart felt lighter, and the ache in his cock was more pleasure than burden.

“Only by fifty hours or so.  You see, I noticed.”

Horatio looked around. “You know your way home, I hope?  I wasn’t attending.”

“This way.  I thought you hated me.  I thought I disgusted you.”

“No,” said Horatio.  He glanced at Edrington, feeling something far from disgust, and noticed a shiver; saw in the lamplight the goosebumps on his arms.  “My lord, you came out without a coat - you’re freezing!  Here, take mine.”

He had it unclasped and half off his shoulder, but Edrington stopped him with a raised hand. “No.  We are almost there.  How can I be cold, when you are near?”

The words warmed him, as did the glance that accompanied them, exciting him in a way he was just beginning to learn to expect when Lord Edrington was with him.  Then Edrington led him to his door, and pushed it open.  The footman Phillips was standing in the hallway, his face disdainful and nervous at the same time.  Edrington walked smartly up to him and tapped him on the cheek - not quite a slap, but a call to attention.  “You lied to this man, who is my dear friend.  When Horatio Hornblower comes to this house, you will tell me he is here, however busy I may seem.  You understand?”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Good. Come,” said Edrington, turning to Horatio, holding out his hand. “Come upstairs - Phillips, have Marjory bring us some food, cakes, the best brandy.  Take Horatio’s coat - that’s it.”  He caught his breath, staring unabashedly as the greatcoat and hat were removed and Horatio was revealed in his full uniform.  Horatio blushed in awkwardness and pleasure.  Behind him, he thought he felt the disapproving glare of the footman.  It mattered not a whit.   Edrington’s eyes warmed him like fire, drawing him upwards.

“Come,” said Edrington again, leading him up the stairs by the hand.  Horatio had not walked thus, hand in hand with another, since childhood.  The portrait of the elegant couple on the landing stared down at them and Horatio said, randomly, “Gainsborough?”

“No, why, you like art?”

“It is the only artist whose name I know,” confessed Horatio.  “Unless it’s Michelangelo.”   Edrington made a face, but it was not mockery, it was delight.  He pulled Horatio into a room, and closed the door behind them.

“It is not Michelangelo,” he said softly.  “Michelangelo made beautiful naked men.”

Horatio flushed again, feeling at a disadvantage.  It was all very well to know a man was rich, and quite another thing to see for himself the contrast between this man’s living quarters and his own dark, tiny corner of the Indefatigable.  This bedroom was larger than most rooms Horatio had been in.  The decor was rich and simple; a soldier’s room, yes, but the room of a soldier who lived like a prince.  There was no Baroque splendour here: it was a room of neo-classical proportions and sensibilities, straight lines and Grecian urns, white trim with muted blues.  A large white fireplace dominated the wall opposite the bed, the warm blaze making it possible to forget the chill of the winter night.  On it were a polished wooden box and a vase of perfect yellow flowers.  Candles in sconces on the walls kept the room bright.  White curtains trimmed with indigo covered the windows.

Edrington brushed Horatio’s cheek with the back of his hand.   His other hand rested on his arm. “I’m afraid to let go of you,” he said.  “Afraid you’ll get away.”

Horatio met his eyes.  “I am not leaving.”

“Tell me you’re not just here to - to explain your refusals, and to say good-bye.”

“My lord, that is not why I came.”

Deep brown eyes rested on his face.  There was a trace of uncertainty in the line of his mouth.  “Sensual delights?”

The breath caught in Horatio’s throat and he could not speak.  That was, perhaps, reply enough.  “Sit down,” said Edrington.  He had dropped his hand from Horatio’s face. The other hand clasped his fingers.

Horatio said, “I fear I will disappoint you, my lord.”

“The only way you could disappoint me is by leaving.”

In answer, Horatio sat in the firm straight-backed wooden chair by the door.  The wood was exotic - teak, he thought - and the soft upholstery of the padded seat was silk brocade.  

His face must have betrayed more than he intended.  “Are you nervous?” asked Edrington, crouching at Horatio’s knees.  He put one hand on his thigh for balance, but did not otherwise touch him.

“No. Yes.  No.”

“Why? Because of my rank?”

“Because,” Horatio stammered and found he had to start again.  “Because I have never done this before.”

Edrington tilted his head.  “Never been with an Earl, you mean?  Did you think I would leap upon you like an animal?”

“I didn’t know what to expect,” confessed Horatio. “I still don’t.”

“I wouldn’t mind leaping on you like an animal,” said Edrington wistfully.  “But we can try that later.  First, I’d like to know something about you.  I know so little.  Tell me about yourself.”

Open-ended questions were always the hardest to answer. “I’m extremely boring, my lord,” said Horatio.

“You?”  Edrington’s eyebrows rose, making him look the very picture of the haughty aristocrat that Horatio had thought him, and yet, at the same time, delightfully boyish in his shirtsleeves.  But the arms were not those of any kind of boy; they were the strong limbs of a soldier who has been a man of action for many years.  Horatio reached out to touch Edrington’s forearm.  He could feel its warmth, the hard muscle, the fine-haired skin.

Edrington dropped his eyes to look at his hand.  He took it lightly in his fingers and lifted it to his mouth, touching the fingers with his lips, a whisper of a kiss.  “Liar.  There is nothing boring or dull about you.  Tell me why you came here tonight.”

“For you,” said Horatio.  He licked his lips. “Just for you.”

“Dear God,” said Edrington.  He dropped his head for a moment, leaving Horatio staring at the top of his head where the neatly ordered waves were fiercely tamed into a braided ribbon at the nape.   When he looked up, a rueful dimple showed.  “I cannot believe my luck.  You said you wouldn’t come.  I waited, I hoped, but - I thought you must be with one of your other lovers.  That you didn’t want me at all.”

“Me?”  Horatio shook his head in disbelief.  “I have no lovers, and never have had any, man or woman.”

To his surprise, Edrington did not believe him.  “Rubbish!  I know better.”

“Then you know things I do not.”

Edrington said awkwardly, “Don’t lie to me, Horatio.  Remember, I was in Muzillac.  I know you bedded that girl.”

“No,” said Horatio.

“We all knew.  You spent the night in her cottage.  You tried to bring her out with you, before she was - before they shot her.”

“I slept in her chair,” said Horatio.  “Nothing happened between us.”

“Nothing?” Edrington looked as if it were difficult to believe.

“Well - we kissed.  No more than that.”

Edrington studied his face. “Why?”

“Why - ?”

“She adored you.  You could see it in her eyes.  Why not - ”

“Why not take advantage?  Because that is what it would have bee: taking advantage.  I could not do that to her.  Already I had seen that monster leering at her and touching her even while he insulted her. I saw the soldiers who meant to rape her, who thought I was doing the same.  She was frightened, alone, in danger of her life.  I would not take advantage of her desperation and gratitude - and I don’t believe you would either.”

Edrington stood, letting Horatio’s hand fall off his arm.  “What of the others who love you?”

“There are none, my lord.”

“No?  What about Mr. Kennedy?”

What would make him think that?  “We are friends.  Did you think - ?”  He shook his head.  “No.”

“It appears I misunderstood,” said Edrington drily.  He looked thoughtful.  “He was ready to give his life for you, and I thought . . . .”  He began to wander the room, slowly, randomly.

“Who else were you thinking of?  I assure you, there are no ‘others’, on the ship or off it.  The thought is absurd.”

“You shame me,” said Edrington.  “I made assumptions, and I was wrong.  I have almost committed a serious indiscretion. Indeed, had I known the truth, I would not have dared to say what I did that day in the Strand.   I cannot be sorry I did.  Do you really believe yourself unloved?”

 

“I am alone,” said Horatio, feeling more awkward than ever.

“There are those who love you,” said Edrington.  “I will not say their names.  Even if it were right to do so - and it is not - I confess that I don’t want to send you running to any other man’s arms.  You have no idea how attractive you are, do you?”

“I’m not,” said Horatio, amused.  “You flatter me.  It is you who are beautiful.”

Arrested, Edrington stopped pacing. “Say that again.”

“You are beautiful.”

Edrington dimpled impishly, his hand on the bedpost.  “Again.”

“You are beautiful.  How many times shall I say it?  It remains true.”

Edrington came over and cupped his chin in one hand.  “I shall have you lying like a courtier in no time.” He leaned forward, his lips opening.

It would have been a kiss, Horatio knew it, braced for it, longed for it with all his body.  But there was a tap on the door, and Edrington straightened, stepped casually back. “Come in!”

It was a serving girl with a tray laden with brandy, a plate of sandwiches, and one of cakes.  She crossed the room to put the tray on one of the delicate polished tables.  The tray was silver, engraved in designs of vines and flowers and small two-dimensional animals, delicate and complex as anything Horatio had ever seen.  The brandy decanter and glasses were crystal, yet Edrington, picking it up,  was handling them as casually as the crudest of mugs.  At the same time, there was precision and delicacy in his touch.  Those hands had surely never broken anything they touched, unless deliberately.   Horatio wished those hands were touching him.

“Will that be all, my lord?” asked the girl, standing again at the door.  She had not looked at Horatio.

“Yes, Marjory, that’s all for now.”

She bobbed to the Earl, and then, to Horatio’s astonishment, to Horatio as well before leaving the room and closing the door behind her.  Edrington poured two glasses of brandy; he brought one to Horatio.  He squatted again beside his knee, his own legs wide, clicking glasses.  “To us.”

“To us,” repeated Horatio.  His voice cracked.  He sipped the brandy.  It tasted better than anything he had ever had before.  “It’s French!” he exclaimed, on a sudden, shocked realization.

“Of course.  Only the best.”

“Smuggled?”  Horatio tried to relax, not to fret about it.  Many people bought smuggled goods; they knew no better.  Country people especially, for whom international politics were remote and meant little.   Some of the rich simply didn’t care.  But Edrington, who knew - who must care -

“Not smuggled,” said Edrington.  “My God, this stuff has been in our cellars for decades.  Since long before the war.”

“Oh,” said Horatio.  He had never considered such a thing.  He looked at his hand.  Edrington’s hand closed over it, on his knee.  His touch was warm.  Horatio said apologetically, “I am unaccustomed to such luxuries.”

“While I,” said Edrington, “am a spoiled rich boy, and unrepentant.”  He put his glass on the floor, stood, and looked down at Horatio.  Horatio looked up at him.  Edrington leaned over him, one hand on the back of the chair, and kissed him.

At first, it was a heady shock: the touch of lips to lips, soft and firm, the breath, the moistness of the mouth, the taste of brandy and Edrington mixed that coursed through Horatio’s senses.  When Edrington moved away, Horatio did not want him to go, found his hand reaching out for him.  He let it drop.  Edrington took another sip of his brandy and said, “Perhaps I am overdressed.”

“I am in the one in full uniform,” said Horatio.

“And stunning in it.  No, don’t remove it - yet.”

Edrington unbuttoned his waistcoat.  Horatio’s eyes followed his hands hypnotically as they manipulated the buttons: strong, businesslike hands, doing exactly as they were meant to, without fumbling.  Edrington tossed the waistcoat over a chest beside the bed.  He loosened his cravat, and removed it.  The collar fell open to reveal his neck, the candlelight catching shadows and highlights on the skin, and the hint of fair, curling hair just out of sight.  He pulled his shirt over his head, and tossed it after the waistcoat.  Nipples dark against the fair skin of his chest, hair adding texture over smooth muscles.   He removed his shoes; his stockings; then unbuttoned one side of his breeches.  One side only.

Horatio swallowed, watching him, feeling odd and pleasurable stirrings.  Edrington came back towards him, candlelight both shading and revealing the shape of his cock within the trousers where the waistband hung half-free.   He touch Horatio’s shoulder, then ran his hand lightly down his arm to the elbow.  “See,” he said.  “The more clothes I take off, the less I am an Earl, the more I am ordinary.”

Horatio let out his breath.  “Forgive me, my lord,” said Horatio, “but I have seen many men in many stages of undress in my years on the sea, and you are not in any way ordinary.”

“What am I, then?”

Horatio grinned at him.  “Beautiful.”

“And you,” said Edrington breathlessly, “are temptation personified.”  He kissed his mouth again.  He held him in a light embrace, fingers tracing the back of his neck.  “I want your body, Horatio.”

“As I desire yours,” whispered Horatio.  Their mouths remained close.  

Edrington’s voice was a melody of rhythm and cadence.  “I want to touch you all over.”  This kiss was light, not a touch of the lips this time, but a touch of the tongue, so quick that it was gone before Horatio realized what it was.  “I want to see and touch and smell and taste every part of you.  I want to lick you and caress you.”  His lips trailed across Horatio’s cheek.  “I want to find every orifice you have and explore them all.”

“All of them?”  His heart was pounding.

The answer was a whisper against his hair.  “Every one.”

Horatio considered that, his eyes half shut.  “My ears, for example?”  he speculated.  His face was bland, but the corner of his mouth twitched slightly.  

“Your ears,” breathed Edrington.  He touched the back of Horatio’s left ear with a gentle finger.  He moved closer to touch it with his tongue, just the tip, tracing a line down the outside, the inside, the lobe.  His breath was soft and warm.  His lips played with the curves and crevices he found; his teeth ran along the edge.  “An ear to play with forever,” he said softly, and the sound made its own sensuous dance among the sensations tormenting the damp skin under the Earl’s mouth.  “I love your ear.”

Horatio’s body was responding with such force that he could not keep still, did not know where to turn.  “My lord!  Let me take my jacket off.  It is warm.”

“I’ll take it off for you,” said Edrington.  He eased it over Horatio’s shoulders, pulling him forward in the chair, so that for a moment they were chest to chest and Horatio’s cheek was alongside his.  He threw the jacket aside - a carelessness Horatio would never show with his own clothes, and he felt a delicious rush of freedom in the act, as if on this night anything would be permissible.  They were approaching the unsafe, forbidden territory at the edge of the wilderness, that place within himself that Horatio had always wondered about but had never known how to explore or tame or release.

Edrington began to unbutton Horatio’s waistcoat, slowly, button by button, more slowly but no less precisely than he had unfastened his own. His fingers traced the skin underneath, nothing between the skin of his fingers and the skin of Horatio’s chest but the light cotton shirt.  Horatio’s breathing quickened.

Edrington’s trousers, loosened at the waist, held tenuously by the still-open button, gaped from pressure within.  Edrington noticed Horatio’s glance, and said, “You see how I want you.  I’m going to make love to you, Horatio.  Slowly and completely.  I am going to make it last as long as I am able.  And then we shall do it all over again.”  He kissed Horatio’s throat, lips stippling from chin to clavicle.  “How shall I start?”

“I thought we had started,” said Horatio dreamily.  Edrington retraced the kisses on throat and neck, then back down his collarbone to his chest where his shirt hung open, causing shivers.  Overcome with restlessness, he wanted to move, but he hardly could think how.  Certainly not away from these irresistible caresses. He tried to moved closer to Edrington, to press his swollen cock against Edrington’s body, but Edrington was, cunningly, just a little too far away from his chair.

“We have.  We have only just started.  What now?  I will do anything. You need only ask.”

Horatio swallowed.  “Your breeches.  Take off your breeches.”

The warm hand found its way under his loosened shirt, touching his chest with warm, feathery strokes, which randomly became firm, then light again.  Fingers tweaked his nipples.  Spirals of sensation radiated from them, distracting him from his thoughts,  lightning to the nerves.  Were such feelings possible?  “Why, Horatio?”  Lips against his Adam’s apple, light as silk.  “Tell me why you want that.”

“I - I want to see you.”

“You will most certainly see me.”  Edrington stood, and Horatio felt a spurt of disappointment because he had stopped touching him.  He watched as Edrington removed his breeches, one leg at a time, and dropped them on top of Horatio’s coat.  His cock swung free, erect in a backdrop of copper curls. Edrington said,  “I’ve been hard since you arrived.  Have you?”

“Since long before then,” said Horatio.  “I’ve been thinking about you all day.  Thinking about wanting you.”

 

Edrington took his hand again, pulling it to make him rise from the chair.  “In that case, you have waited long enough.  Come to my bed.”

It took a while to get there.  Edrington put his arms around Horatio’s waist, half-lifting him, giving him the full body contact he wanted.  He kissed Horatio and he helped him remove his waistcoat and shirt.  He put his arms around him, reaching behind his back to untie the back of his breeches, then, still pressing close, snapped the buttons through the buttonholes of the front flap, taking his cock in one warm hand and holding it as he pulled the fabric away and down.  He helped him remove his fallen breeches, stockings and shoes with deft hands that tickled,  pressed, and caressed by turns.  Then he stepped back, looking at Horatio with the concentration of an artist - or was it the concentration of a hunter with prey in his sights?

Aroused as he was, Horatio suddenly felt gangly, awkward, exposed.  He was suddenly aware how every sensation was new to him, putting him at a disadvantage with his lordship’s undoubted experience.  He felt a momentary urge to cover his swollen cock, but he was too proud to do so, and not quite nervous enough.

Edrington stared him up and down with avid eyes.  “Horatio . . .  You looked so good in your uniform I never wanted you to take it off.  Now you look even better.”

Horatio did not move, but he felt the fear evaporating.  There was nothing to be afraid of here.  Edrington came to him, kissed his lips, trailed a finger down the central line of his body to his cock, and gently wrapped his fingers around it. “Come to me,” he said.

Horatio stepped into his embrace.   He kissed Edrington’s shoulder, getting lost in the realm of desire, chest to chest and skin to skin.

“Bed,” said Edrington, moving away, pulling back the bedclothes, getting in.  Horatio sat for a moment on the edge of the bed, then swung his legs up.  Beds on land were so solid, so stable, they always startled him for that first moment.

Edrington kissed his hand, first, then tilted his face with a finger under his chin, and kissed his lips.  “Do whatever you wish in this bed,” he said.  “Do whatever you wish to my body.  There is nothing you can do that I won’t like.  There is nothing you can do that will hurt or offend me.  We have all the time we need, and if we make a mess, we clean up. You understand?”

“No,” said Horatio.  “Show me.”

“Sometimes it’s good to rush things,” said Edrington, his breath soft against Horatio’s shoulder.  His fingers traced patterns on Horatio’s skin - chest, back, belly. He lifted his head.  “Sometimes it can’t be helped.  Generally, the slower you go, the better it is in the end.  If you can bear it.  Women know that.”  He ran a hand over Horatio’s shoulder and down to his buttocks,  then curled his fingers over Horatio’s erection.  His thumb toyed with the wetness at the tip.  He brought the thumb to his mouth, and tasted it.  “Perfect.”  His hand slipped back between Horatio’s legs.  Horatio lay back and spread them, bending his knees.  His eyes must have widened as Edrington’s hand explored his balls.  Edrington took it for alarm and said,  “Don’t worry, I won’t hurt you.”

Hurt?  Nothing had been further from his thought.  He was feeling things he had never felt before in cock, balls, arse; in all his skin and all his extremities.  What he had known or guessed of lovemaking was only the faintest shadow of this.  He had never imagined, and if he had imagined, he would had never dared to hope for this intensity of sensation, delivered as delicately as a gift.  “I didn’t think you would.”

“No?  Pleasure and pain go together well.”

Horatio knew well enough now that Lord Edrington liked to tease in more ways than one. “Indeed, my lord, so I have heard it said.  Perhaps you want to go fetch your whip?”

Edrington’s voice hinted at velvet laughter.  “Maybe not quite yet.”  He took Horatio’s head in his hands and kissed him, then trailed his tongue-tip over lips, nose, eyes.  “Everything about you is exactly as it should be,” he said.  His heavy right leg slipped between Horatio’s legs, capturing his cock, pressing on his balls.  Horatio writhed against him.  “My lord!”

Edrington put a finger in Horatio’s mouth.  Horatio sucked, tasting him, loving it, loving the glazed look which flickered in Edrington’s eyes.  Edrington took his finger back, licked it himself, smiled, and wrapped his arms around Horatio, caressing him until the slick wet finger found his arsehole, exposed it, touched it, teased and caressed it.  He moved the finger in tiny enticing circles.

Horatio flung his body harder against Edrington, hardly understanding his frenzy, lost in too many new feelings and a riot of nerve-ends.  He started to climax against Edrington’s body and Edrington held him, murmuring something encouraging and half-heard, gathering Horatio’s fluid and rubbing his own cock with it, throwing his head back, his eyes closed.   Horatio put his hand over Edrington’s hand because he did not want them to do this as two separate men.  Edrington came then too, his body jerking, his breath caught, his voice silent.

Heavy breathing from both of them, in each other’s arms.

“My Lord Edrington,” said Horatio, nuzzling his neck.  He smelled different now: semen and sweat mixed with Indian cinnamon from Horatio’s own skin.

“My dear Horatio,” said Edrington.  “I’m not sure which of us is teaching the other.  I haven’t lost control like that since . . . . ”

“Since?” prompted Horatio.

“Oh God, I don’t know.”  He touched Horatio’s face.  “Be patient with me.  I am moved beyond imagining.  What have you done to me?”

“Splattered you,” said Horatio affectionately.  He trailed a finger through the wetness on Edrington’s belly, then bent his head to lick it.  Was it Edrington or himself he was tasting?  Both of them, perhaps.

Edrington watched him with slipped eyes.  “Most expertly you splattered me,” he said.  He rose and went to the basin on the washstand, coming back with the wet cloth and basin.  Gently he washed Horatio’s body, and his own.  “A virgin’s body no longer,” he said softly.  He returned the basin to its stand, and came back to the bed with a towel so soft that Horatio could hardly believe it was real.  He nipped at a bit of muscle, tongued the residual ache of a nipple.  Horatio jumped, oversensitized.

Then Edrington sat up and said briskly, “Sandwiches.  We have sandwiches.  Are you hungry, Horatio?”

“Only for you,” said Horatio.  He closed his eyes, smiling languorously as he heard Edrington  move out of the bed and come back.  When he opened them again, Edrington was sitting cross-legged beside him, eating, a sandwich in one hand and the still-unfinished glass of brandy in the other. He tilted his head.  “You are perfect.”

There seemed to be no place for self-consciousness in this bed.  Overcome with a sense of physical well-being such as he had seldom known, he rolled onto his side, propping his head on one arm to better watch Edrington, and said, “You asked about me.  Tell me about yourself.”

Edrington swallowed a mouthful of sliced beef and mustard in bread, licking a crumb off the back of his hand.  “What do you want to know?”  Recalled to his identity, a flash of the old arrogance was back in his face, and this time Horatio found it endearing: Edrington the man and Edrington the Earl competing with each other for mind and soul of the man.

“How did you learn to make love so beautifully?”

“I’m glad you thought so.  Ah.”  Edrington lay back on his pillow.  His hand absently played with the skin of Horatio’s hip, then wandered upwards to his chest. Horatio’s skin tingled with a new awareness.  “I started fucking and being fucked when I was . . . oh, thirteen or so, I suppose.  I knew about physical desire long before that.  My father.  I was not born to the title, you know.  My father was the wastrel third son of the sixth Baron Edrington.  I was his second son.  My father was a drunk and a fool.  He used to . . . Will this shock you, Horatio?”

Horatio said carefully, “I have that there are fathers who use their sons improperly.”

“Oh, God, no, it wasn’t that.  It’s just that he liked to have me watch him with his whores.  I was seven, eight, nine.  I enjoyed it.  The women were sweet and kind and called me pet names.  I realized later that it was my presence that helped him get it up sometimes.  He must have been diseased; he was certainly pickled.  I could not admire him, but I cared for him.   My mother was all gentility and grace; I was lost in some wasteland between then.   But I am losing my story -  I was going to tell you about Jake.”

“Jake?”

Edrington reached for his glass of brandy, took a sip, and put it back on the table beside the bed, making Horatio wait.  Horatio did not mind waiting.  Every motion Edrington made was smooth and powerful, an interplay of light and shadow, making his breath catch as he watched  its ever-changing beauty.  Edrington lay on his back, arms loose over his head.  The lamplight caught highlights on his body: hairs that were sometimes gold, sometimes copper; smooth lines interrupted occasionally by scars.

“He was one of the gypsies who worked in my uncle’s stables.  By that time something had happened between my parents -  I’ve never known what.  Perhaps he beat her, raped her, I don’t know . . . . My mother’s brothers learned of it, whatever it was, and they paid us a visit.  I was whisked away to the Edrington estate - it belonged to my uncle by then, my grandfather had died.  He asked me many questions about my life with my father.  I think he was angry, but not with me.

“I loved living there, Horatio. It was obvious that I was being groomed as the heir.  I suppose Uncle George could have no children.  Except for my father and my sister, I was all there was.  My older brother had died at the age of  four.  My uncle Octavius, older than my father, was killed in America.  So I was going to be the Earl of Edrington, and fabulously rich, and able to do anything I wanted to forever.”

“I can’t imagine it being otherwise,” said Horatio, and he received a sharp glance for it, which warmed into a gaze of unstinting affection.  “Not your father?  Wasn’t he in the line of succession somewhere?”

“No one wanted him to be.  I imagine they hoped he’d just drink himself to death before Uncle George died.  It didn’t happen quite that way.  Papa drowned when I was fourteen.  I was the only one who wept at his funeral.  Imagine being so unloved, Horatio!  Except by me.  Except by the whores, but they wouldn’t let them into the church.  Everyone else he knew held him in contempt.  He was walking alone by the river one day, and fell in.  Dead drunk, they said.  Maybe he was.  I have always suspected that one of my uncles may have pushed him.”  He rolled towards Horatio, leaned over to lick a nipple.  “I don’t want to know.”

“Jake,” gasped Horatio.  He pulled the ribbon from Edrington’s queue, so the hair fell tickling along his arms and across his chest.  He lifted and kissed a strand.  “Tell me about Jake.  Your lover.”

Edrington lay his head on Horatio’s chest, letting Horatio’s fingers trace his scalp, his ear, his face.  “He was sixteen or seventeen. Dark.  Rough.  Handled horses like an angel. Heavy eyebrows, big hands.  I was mad over horses in those days, stayed in the stables whenever I could.  He never had much to say, but he invited me to go fishing with him.  Fishing?  What did I know about fishing?  I thought he was magnificent.  Didn’t stop to think why I thought that, just went with him and his fishing rod to the lake.  Turned out I was the fish he was trying to catch.”  He kissed Horatio’s throat.  “We fucked every day all summer.  In the autumn, the gypsies left.  I suppose everyone breathed a sigh of relief.  Whether they knew what we were doing or not, it was clear I was falling into unsuitable company.  Jake had never met a Latin verb or heard a symphony, but he had music in his touch.”

“And then?”

“What, you want more?”

“You took another lover?”

“A girl. Jenny.  Had to try it with a girl, didn’t I?  She was lovely.  Worked in the buttery.  A virgin.  Smart, lively . . . Her family had hopes for her, and I suppose sleeping with the Earl’s heir was as good a path to them as any.  I loved her dearly, for a few mad weeks - then realized she wasn’t the only girl I could have.  When I went back to school, I discovered the boys.  But by that time we had a little surprise.  Jenny was pregnant.”

“Oh,” said Horatio.

“So I learned that there are pitfalls to doing it with women.”  He shifted to lap at Horatio’s navel with the tip of his tongue.  It interrupted his talk; his hand closed, gently and warmly, on Horatio’s cock, neither flaccid nor hard yet, waiting for him.  “Men are so much simpler - in some ways.”

“And?”

“The worst of it was Mama’s anger.  I had never seen her so. I thought she would never forgive me.  She was as you would be, Horatio - oh, God, you’re going to love her, and she you.  She talked about ‘taking advantage’ of people, your very words, pointing out to me that whether Jenny wanted me or not, she had little choice once I said that I wanted her.  People are not toys, she said.  She was angry for days - angry still when I went back to school.  She never said I was just like my father, but I knew she thought it.  I was terrified.”

“Were you sorry?”

“About Jenny?  No, how could I be?  It had been delightful with her.  I was pleased with myself, the only fifteen-year-old father in my class.  I didn’t have much else to be proud of - I wasn’t the richest or the tallest or the highest in rank, and God knows I wasn’t the cleverest.  I wrote a contrite letter to my mother and she wrote back, forgiving me, begging my own forgiveness for the excess of her anger.  Jenny was married to a farmer named Banks, who was willing enough to raise an Earl’s bastard.  A good man, he’s made her happy.  They had five more children in short order.  Seb - my son - he wants to become a lawyer.  He has a clever, tricky mind - he didn’t get it from me.”  He nuzzled Horatio’s groin.  “I am proud of him.  But ever since, I have followed my mother’s advice - most of the time.  I don’t touch the servants.”  His tongue made a trail back up across Horatio’s belly.  “Maybe that’s Phillips’ problem.  Maybe he’s jealous of you.”

“Who?”

“Phillips.  My footman.  The man who lied, and sent you away this evening.”

Horatio dimly recalled the man, the incident.  It seemed long ago.  “He is good looking.”

“Yes, he is, isn’t he?  But a Methodist, and abominably worried about my soul. He thinks that with every new lover I damn myself further.   I don’t mind him praying for me, but I will not let my servants take it upon themselves to choose who I sleep with.  Especially when he would deny you to me.”  He kissed the inside of Horatio’s elbow.  “Only you have the right to do that.”

“My lord, I could deny you nothing.”

“Christ!”  Edrington buried his face between Horatio’s arm and his body. His voice was muffled.  “I have wanted you since the day we met.  I was so jealous of Kennedy, furious that you and he had no respect for the soldiers or for me, though I could not fault your behaviour.  I wanted to impress you.  I wanted to make love to you.  I wanted you badly and we seemed to be at loggerheads on every occasion.”

“You were cosying up to that beast Moncoutant.”

“You were baiting him. I was being diplomatic. Someone had to be.  You were the one I wanted to cosy up to!  Then that girl - oh, Horatio, I thought her the luckiest being on earth.”

“Not lucky,” said Horatio softly. “About to die.”  The memory still hurt.

“Yes.  I thought we’d lost you, too.  Kennedy was stalling.  We had to blow the bridge, and it meant your death.  We had to do it.  It was too much to bear - and then you returned, and Archie pulled you back.  You were so brave.”

“Aye,” said Horatio, hating the recollection.  “Bravely foolish or foolishly brave, trying to save a French girl I hardly knew, to no purpose, while we lost everything we had come for.  I  endangered you, Archie, the soldiers, my own men.   If Captain Pellew had not come to save us with the Indy and her guns, we would all have been lost.  I regret that day.  I regret that I had not thanked you, either, for without you we would not have survived.”

“No thanks necessary.  The results were the work of many, as in any military engagement.”  Edrington kissed Horatio’s fingertips, one by one.  “My role in saving you was my pleasure, and now I claim my reward.  Roll over.”

Horatio obediently rolled over, feeling a thrill of anticipation. Edrington’s touch had hardened him again, and though he did not know what to expect, he knew he wanted it, that it would be as good as before.  Edrington moved his legs apart and lay between them, trailing fingers up the inside of Horatio’s thighs, back and forth.  He gently bit the skin at the fold between buttock and thigh.  “You have strong legs.”  His kisses wandered upwards.  “And such a fine arse.”  He gently parted Horatio’s cheeks to slip his tongue between them.  “A poet could write odes to this arsehole.”  His tongue tickled and probed.  He paused. “I pay it tribute in my way.”

“My Lord!”  Horatio squirmed.  His insides had become like lava, molten and hot and waiting to erupt.  He had never felt anything like Edrington’s tongue, soft and rough by turns, powerful and gentle.

“You like this?”

“I have never felt such things.”

The lips lingered and gently sucked.  “Would you like to know how it feels to be filled there?”

“Oh, yes!”  He trembled at the thought.  What had been frightening was suddenly an outcome to be craved.

Soft breath blew on his arsehole.  “Soon, Horatio.”  The breath went away.

“Am I greedy?”  Horatio grinned mischievously at him over his shoulder.  Edrington looked up with a quizzical look, and put a finger where his mouth had been.

He pushed inside, to the first knuckle.  He moved his finger.   Horatio gasped and bucked.  Edrington moved his finger up and down, backwards and forwards, side to side.  After the first while Horatio could not tell how he was moving, only that the touch was there, inside him, deliciously foreign.  

Edrington said, “I like it when you’re greedy. I like the way you clench against my finger.  I like the way your muscles quiver.”  Fingers soothed the skin of his buttocks.  “Soon, you will think this is nothing at all.”  He removed the finger and bent, kissing the soft skin at the base of Horatio’s spine, blowing on the little hairs there.  “Perhaps we should leave something for another day.  Perhaps if we do too much, you will not want to come back to me.”

“I will, if that is what you wish,” said Horatio, slightly breathless.

“I wish it,” said Edrington.  He rested his forehead against Horatio’s rump.  “With all my heart.  What I expected . . . what I thought was that you would leave me satisfied.  Now I am not sure I can bear to have you leave me at all.  Tell me you will come back.  Come back, and we can do this all again.”

“My lord, we can’t know the future.  If we leave too much for tomorrow, we may entirely lose the chance to do what we hoped for.”

“A philosopher.  God.  You’re right. Carpe diem.”  He kissed the small of Horatio’s back.  “How long can you stay?  When are you on duty?”

“I have another day’s leave.”

“God!  Can I cancel my engagements?”  He considered.  “I believe so.”

“Not for my sake.  My lord, you must not.”

“I must.  What, would you go already?  My mother and sister can see me another day.  As for you,” he sucked on the smooth, scarless skin of Horatio’s buttock, and paused to look at the rosy spot he had created, “I cannot do without you.  You fill my heart.  I hope,” his voice deepened, “you will fill my body as well.”

“If you wish it.”

“Do you?”

“Yes!  I hadn’t thought - I thought you would be sending me back, after we made love.”

“I told you: we have barely started.  After tonight, you must not forget me.  You will survive, and I will survive, and you must come back to me, and we will love each other again.  I will take you to my estate.”

It was a beautiful dream, but how could it be more than that?  “I am a sailor.  What place do I have in an Earl’s house?”

“In my arms.  Come back whenever you can.  As often as you can.  There will always be more we can share.”  A finger pressed a spot by his spine.  “Did you know you have a beautiful freckle right here?”  He touched his lips to it.  “Just one inch to the north-north-west of your cleft, like a guiding star.  What would you feel if your Captain kissed you here?”

The words jolted through Horatio like an electric shock.  He jerked away so quickly that he hit Edrington with his hip, and Edrington hastily moved out of his way, his face revealing nothing.

Facing him from the side of the bed, leaning on an elbow, his breath quick, his face flushed with anger, his cock extended and harder than ever, Horatio said, “My lord!  You forget yourself.”

The Earl was unapologetic.  “How would you feel?”  Edrington repeated, not backing down.  He reached for Horatio’s hand.  Horatio made to pull it away, then relented as Edrington entwined and played with his fingers.  His eyes dropped.

“I thought you should understand your feelings,” said Edrington.

Horatio clung to his anger.  He did not like having his innermost thoughts unveiled and repeated to him, thoughts he barely dared acknowledge to himself.  “You must not speak of Captain Pellew so.”

“Why not?  Hell’s bell’s, Horatio, he’s only a man - like any man.  A man with a cock, like any other.  I am sure he knows well how to use it.”

“Enough!” said Horatio.  His throat was tight, his arousal intense.

“But he is not like any other . . . to you.  Is he?”

“You torment me.”  

“Good.  Let me torment you some more.”  

Edrington pulled Horatio into his arms.  Horatio kissed him this time with a desperate appetite, his cock aching, overstimulated and refusing to subside.   Edrington wrapped his legs around Horatio’s waist, allowing fingers and lips free play.  “My beautiful sailor,” he said. “Will you fuck me, Horatio?’

Horatio ran a finger down his cheek. “As you wish,” he said.  Then he amended it. “If I can.”

Edrington flicked a tongue over his palm.  “I have no doubts about your ability.”  He hefted Horatio’s cock in his hand.  “Or your readiness . . . . By the fire, I think.”

The fireplace was large, the fire well set and blazing comfortably. “Do the servants come in, to tend to the fire?”asked Horatio, rising.

“Not until morning, unless I send for them.  Usually I manage myself.  Why, are you cold?”

“No.  Not at all.  I just wondered what they thought.”

“They’re used to me.  They don’t judge.  Except Phillips.  Don’t worry, no owne will enter until I call them.”  Edrington took a vial from the box on the mantlepiece, and poured something into his hand.  “Come here.”  He took Horatio’s cock in his hands and began to rub oil on it, soothing it and inflaming it at the same time.  “This makes it better,” he said.  “You will see.  Use more if you wish.”  He pressed the vial in Horatio’s hands.  “Put some on my arsehole.  Think you can find it?”

“Perhaps I should get my navigation charts.”  He knelt behind as Edrington knelt on the rug, his knees apart, bracing himself on his arms.  The oil was cool and soft on his fingers.  He touched Edrington’s skin, feeling the twitch that went through his whole body.  Horatio explored him with his fingertips, then bent to kiss and taste his skin.

Edrington said, “Come, put your weight on me, I can handle it.  Yes, that’s it.”  His voice was strained beyond its normal modulation.

Kneeling behind him, Horatio felt Edrington’s body trembling in his arms.  He knew the shudders were of desire, and that knowledge increased his own excitement.  He moved his ready cock against the hole, feeling his way with his fingers.  The light from the fire made Edrington’s skin glow.  He reached an arm around Edrington’s waist and found his hand holding his cock.  He put his hand over Edrington’s hand and said, “Ready?”

“More than ready,” said Edrington, pushing back against him.

So it was done.   Edrington was tight and hot and deliciously mobile.  Horatio found and rubbed Edrington’s nipples, as Edrington had done for him, discovering with delight how they hardened and grew.  The firelight flickered on their skin.  He wanted the moment to last forever, an eternity of accelerating desire, while his blood pounded in his ears in tune to Edrington’s groans.

It might have been forever, and still be too short.  He came hard within Edrington, trying not to soften, trying to extend the moment, but it slipped away, and he found himself lying triumphantly, holding Lord Edrington in his arms.  How had he ever found Edrington arrogant, cold, overbearing?  He was a warm man, a good man, adorable.  An man in whose arms one could find excitement and rest, like the arms of the sea.

He had never known what he had been looking for, but now he had found it: this man with no coarseness in him, just sensuality and welcome.

Edrington murmured, “Horatio,” and kissed his forehead.

Horatio relaxed in the warmth of the embrace.

\- end –

 

 


End file.
